Pane e tulipani is an enjoyable romantic movie. It is about a housewife who is on a trip with her family. When her family mistakenly leaves her at rest stop during the trip, she decides to maker her own way home rather than wait for her overbearing husband. As her husband gets more angry, she decides to have a little vacation away from her overbearing husband and apathetic children. This is her journey.The premise is very good and the characters were wonderful. But in the end I couldn't help thinking that the movie could have been much better. Don't get me wrong. The movie doesn't have any obvious flaws. Acting is good. Plot and characters while being a little quirky are still very believable, but I still felt something missing.

Bread and Tulips is one of those modest films which touches human hearts due to a fairly simple story,a choice of good locations,good actors and an overall feel good effect.It has remained a modest film entirely due to its director's efforts.Silvio Soldini is a Swiss director who has converted various challenging stories into some of the most outstanding films of recent times (La brûlure du vent,Agata e la tempesta,Giorni e nuvole) ever directed in Swiss cinema. Silvio Soldini's direction has worked wonders for actors like Licia Maglietta and Bruno Ganz who have given credible performances as a lonely housewife and a sad waiter.Bread and Tulips is a film which is close to human hearts as on many occasions ordinary folks have the tendency to desire that they are left alone to pursue their dreams.One such dream has taken firm hold of our leading lady Rosalba's mind.What we see in the entire film are her efforts to attain the unattainable. Pane e tulipani is a film for you if you admire Italy,Bruno Ganz and richness of simple stories for cinema.

Licia Maglietta and Bruno Ganz are so wonderful in this movie that I wish it had been a better film, because I would love to watch their performances over and over, but I won't be doing so, because, besides Maglietta and Ganz, the movie is only lukewarm."Bread and Tulips" is a lighthearted romantic comedy about a middle-aged woman who accidentally walks out on her family and starts a new life in Venice. Rosalba's (Maglietta)'s husband, Mimmo, dispatches a private detective, actually a plumber who came to him for work, to bring her back home. Comedic and romantic complications ensue.The revelation here is Licia Maglietta. She is simply one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in a movie. She's not just beautiful, she is entrancing. I'd put her appeal in the same class with Garbo. There is a scene where she wrenches a tune out of an accordion (it's actually her playing the accordion) and the look of pleasure on her face has more life and sex appeal than most actresses can achieve in the most rigorous of love scenes.Bruno Ganz, who has convincingly played both an angel ("Wings of Desire") and Hitler ("Downfall") is as wonderful as ever as an older waiter.Ganz and Maglietta make very beautiful music together, but, otherwise, the film is underwritten and lightweight. Rosalba says virtually nothing of substance in the entire film. Venice, a picturesque city, is photographed with so little imagination that the movie may as well have taken place in a K-Mart parking lot.There are some nice gags involving a tulip and an antique gun, but, really, I wish this exact same cast could be brought together for a more ambitious, more fully realized film.

This is a wry, witty Italian comedy with a underlying radical message I don't think the Vatican would approve. Licia Malietta stars as Rosalba Barletta a woman not enamored with either her macho, inconsiderate husband Mimmo Barletta (Antonio Catania) or her life as a housewife. On a vacation she is accidentally left behind in Venice, and then on a whim decides to stay for awhile. She needs to breathe free from the domination of her husband who sees her only as an asset and doesn't love her. Indeed he has a mistress.What she finds in Venice are new warm friends and a certain man, Fernando Girasoli (played with sly finesse by veteran Swiss-born actor Bruno Ganz), who speaks in poetic phrases but wants to hang himself. She also rediscovers a delight in life and the freedom to be herself and do what she wants to do, which includes playing the accordion and reading Mark Twain in bed. She finds a job in a flower shop, a small room, makes friends with the masseuse next door and feels alive for the first time in ages.Her husband sends a plumber he is about to hire to play detective, find her and bring her back, resulting in some light comedic episodes enriched by off-beat characters.Malietta is very winning in the part and certainly will serve as a heroine for frustrated housewives everywhere. Her desire is not for a fling or for physical thrills, rather her desire is to find herself as herself apart from her identification as wife and mother.I have hinted above at her eventual choice, but you will have to see this warm-hearted romantic comedy for yourself to find out what she chooses and why.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)